Sex Offender Brock Turner Banned for Life by USA Swimming

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Brock Turner, who was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on the Stanford University campus, has been officially banned by USA Swimming.

Brock Turner is seen in booking photos released by the Stanford University Department of Public Safety, left, and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, right.

“Brock Turner’s membership with USA Swimming expired at the end of the calendar year 2014,” USA Swimming spokesman Scott Leightman told CNN in a statement. “He was not a member at the time of his crime or since then. USA Swimming doesn’t have any jurisdiction over non-members.”

The statement continued: “Had he been a member, he would have been subject to the USA Swimming Code of Conduct … USA Swimming strictly prohibits and has zero tolerance for sexual misconduct, with firm Code of Conduct policies in place, and severe penalties, including a permanent ban of membership, for those who violate the Code of Conduct.”

Turner, a former swimmer for Stanford, was described as an “Olympic hopeful,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

In order to compete in the U.S. Olympic Trials, swimmers must be members of the U.S. governing body for the sport.

Stanford said in a statement Monday that the university had also banned him from “setting foot on campus” within two weeks of conducting an investigation after the January 2015 sexual assault.

Prosecutors had asked that Turner be sentenced to six years in prison.

But Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky said Turner’s age and lack of criminal history made a six-month jail sentence with probation more appropriate. Turner also has to register as a sex offender.

“A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him,” Persky said last week. “I think he will not be a danger to others.”

The outcry over a sentence seen as lenient by many was compounded by widely circulated letters to the judge from the victim and Turner’s father.

The USA Swimming reaction is the latest example of a wave of national condemnation of the sentence.